I got knocked up… what’s next?

decorative photo of elena and alex's ultrasound scan of niko

If you follow me on socials you may have spotted that I made a very small announcement a few weeks ago: Alex and I are expecting a baby in December!

We’re really excited to bring our tiny human out into the world, especially as getting pregnant was less than straightforward. I was diagnosed with severe PCOS, and had to take a medication called metformin to get my ovaries to work. Metformin is primarily a diabetes medication used to stabilise your blood sugar, but one of its unofficial uses is for encouraging ovulation in people with PCOS. It has some pretty significant side effects, mostly by giving you IBS-like symptoms, but in our case it was worth it, because it actually worked.

That positive test was life-changing, and we were so excited. For about a week I was a bundle of energy, chirping about all the thoughts in my head, making appointments with midwives and really struggling to keep our tiny secret under my hat. But after that first blissful week came the sickness. Jesus christ, the sickness.

My mum had hyperemesis gravidarum with me, so I knew that extreme pregnancy sickness was a possibility. From six weeks pregnant I was an exhausted puke fountain, living in fear of overwhelming smells or driving around roundabouts. 90% of food was suddenly off-limits, and the only things I could consistently keep down were ice pops and Powerade. This culminated in an admission to hospital for two bags of IV fluids and several hours of monitoring because I’d started vomiting blood and couldn’t even keep water down.

The sickness has been pretty grim, and has actually made furlough a blessing in disguise. I got furloughed back in March and haven’t worked since and, while it has been driving me slowly mad and a paycut is never a welcome change, it has meant that I can nap and marathon Treehouse of Horror episodes fairly guilt-free. If I feel like I haven’t done much in the past three months it’s because, honestly, I haven’t. Growing a human has been my sole covid-19 lockdown achievement. I couldn’t even do the paint-by-numbers I ordered before one of my cats threw up on it.

Speaking of covid-19, it has made the whole pregnancy experience quite odd. I was referred to my local Early Pregnancy Unit a few days after my positive test because I’d been bleeding and having stabbing pains, and I had to get a pelvic exam from an out-of-hours doctor in full PPE, which was rather like being fingerbanged by a welder. Then I went for a transvaginal scan, again from a team with masks and visors on. I still haven’t met my actual assigned midwife, or had an opportunity to tour my birthing unit. When I was admitted to hospital this weekend I didn’t see a full human face for nearly 6 hours. While I absolutely appreciate the need for PPE it is odd putting yourself in the hands of people whose faces you can’t see.

Alex has been my absolute hero through all of this. Despite the fact that he’s still working (and bloody hard, far longer than his contracted hours) he has looked after me, the cats and the house while I’ve been a floppy mess. He’s held my hair back, fetched puke buckets and bought me nice bread. He hasn’t been allowed to come to my NHS scans with me to see the baby, which has been really tough on him, so for an early Father’s Day gift I booked a private scan in Bristol, where we both got to see baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was worth every penny for him to get the chance to see our child kicking their froggy little legs, live on screen.

As of today I am 15 weeks and one day pregnant, with the baby due on December 14th. I have a little over five months left of this pregnancy, and I’m slowly starting to get some energy back. I have so much I need to do with the house to get ready, and thanks to furlough I have a teeny tiny budget within which to achieve all of it. It’s really strange to think that I might only be back at work for a month and a half before I go off on maternity leave – it’ll be the least I’ve worked in a year in my whole adult life.

I don’t intend to suddenly become a mummy blogger (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but let’s be honest, I’m hardly a regular poster) but as and when I feel like I have something to say that won’t fit in a Tweet I might find myself here, typing away. For now, I’m going to go and research hypnobirthing courses and book a timeslot at my local dump. Gosh, pregnancy is exciting.

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